If you’re not going to enlarge your digital scans then don’t pay to have them scanned at a higher resolution than 300 dpi. Even if you will be enlarging them you are probably wasting your money. 600 and 1200 dpi scanning services do not mean better scans, but they do mean higher prices. For your typical photographs 300 dpi is the wisest choice.

A photo prints surface is not designed to hold the type of resolution that a photo negative is. If you plan on enlarging scanned images you are far better off scanning the negative if possible.

Paying a scanning service to scan your ordinary photos at 600 dpi not only wastes money it produces larger files than needed. Handling these larger files will make viewing, editing, and manipulating them slower. And they will need to be resized smaller to be used for most applications like slideshows and photobooks and to be used on the web.

Photography experts and professionals already understand their own needs and have formed opinions about photo scanning methods and practices. If you are someone trying to sort out information with the intention of scanning your own photos or purchasing scanning services then I highly recommend a very comprehensive article on the subject by Wayne Fulton at www.scantips.com.

Your photo scanner should save your photos as a high quality jpeg. High Quality denotes that the jpeg has been saved at a low compression with negligible quality loss. Higher compression means smaller files but also lower quality. You can always make your photos files smaller with free photo editing software.

Scanning services usually require that your photos arrive in stacks without regard to their orientation. After scanning, when your portrait photos need to be turned upright, make sure you dont rotate your master scans. Always leave your master scans intact and use copies of them to rotate. Any kind of manipulation recompresses your files and can cause quality loss.

Some photo scanning services offer automatic photo enhancement. What you need to know is enhancement, or any manipulation, can cause jpeg files to be re-compressed and cause some quality loss. Make sure your scanning service provides you with a complete set of master scans and then a copy of them for the enhancements. Don’t ever use the originals to make changes. Always use a copy. You may find that you want to work on special photos yourself. When you do, always start with a fresh copy of the master scan.

If your photo scanning service offers inexpensive automatic photo enhancement it might be wise to take advantage of it. Even though there are lots of good free photo editing software out there it can be extremely time consuming and boring. So let the photo scanner run your photos through the automatic enhancement program especially if this is a low cost service, and save the manual improvement for a few really special photographs. You can also purchase automatic enhancement software, but trying to figure which ones actually work can be a daunting task.

If your family’s precious photographic memories have not been permanently preserved then you need to find out more about photo scanning . Pete Fontaine provides more helpful information at his web page www.nickelscan.com

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